''Troides amphrysus'', the Malay birdwing, is a

birdwing Birdwings are butterflies in the Papilionidae, swallowtail family, that belong to the genera ''Trogonoptera'', ''Troides'', and ''Ornithoptera''. Most recent authorities recognise 36 species, however, this is debated, and some authorities inclu ...

butterfly Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran superfamily Papilionoidea, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The oldest butterfly fossi ...

in the

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

Troides ''Troides'' is a genus of birdwing butterflies, comprising species found in the Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia, and Oceania. Species Twenty one species are recognized: : subgenus: ''Ripponia'' ::* ''Troides hypolitus'' – Rippon's birdwi ...

'' in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Papilionidae Swallowtail butterflies are large, colorful Butterfly, butterflies in the family Papilionidae, and include over 550 species. Though the majority are tropical, members of the family inhabit every continent except Antarctica. The family includ ...

Taxonomy

Subspecies

*''T. a. amphrysus'' (

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

Bali Bali (English:; Balinese language, Balinese: ) is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller o ...

) *''T. a. ruficollis'' (Butler, 1879 (

Peninsular Malaya Peninsular Malaysia, historically known as Malaya and also known as West Malaysia or the Malaysian Peninsula, is the western part of Malaysia that comprises the southern part of the Malay Peninsula on Mainland Southeast Asia and the nearby isla ...

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

Burma Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...

) *''T. a. euthydemus'' (Fruhstorfer, 1913 (

Sumatra Sumatra () is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the list of islands by area, sixth-largest island in the world at 482,286.55 km2 (182,812 mi. ...

) *''T. a. actinotia'' Jordan, 1909 (southern

Borneo Borneo () is the List of islands by area, third-largest island in the world, with an area of , and population of 23,053,723 (2020 national censuses). Situated at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, it is one of the Greater Sunda ...

) *''T. a. flavicollis'' (Druce, 1873) (northern

) *''T. a. niasicus'' (Fruhstorfer, 1898) (

Nias Nias (, Nias: ''Tanö Niha'') is an island located off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Nias is also the name of the archipelago () of which the island is the centre, but also includes the Batu Islands to the southeast and the small ...

) *''T. a. vistara'' Fruhstorfer, 1906 ( Batu Island) *''T. a. astrea'' Hayami, 1992 ( Banyak Island) *''T. a. arkumene'' Hayami, 1994 (

Tioman Tioman Island () is , off the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia, more specifically off the east coast of Rompin District, Pahang, Malaysia. It is long and wide and has seven villages, the largest and most populous being Kampung Tekek on the ...

) *''T. a. chrysomelas'' Parrott & Schmid, 1984 (

Natuna Natuna Regency is an islands regency located in the northernmost part of the Province of Riau Islands, Indonesia. It contains at least 154 islands, of which 127 of them are reported as uninhabited. This archipelago, with a land area of 1,978.49& ...

) *''T. a. simeuluensis'' Ohya, 1985 ( Simeuluë, Babi Island) *''T. a. perintis'' Kobayashi, 1986 ( Tambelan Island) *''T. a. kuris'' Kobayashi & Hayami, 1987 ( Anambas Island) *''T. a. hilbert'' Hayami, 1992 (

Karimata The Karimata Islands are a chain of small islands off the west coast of Indonesian Borneo, the largest of which is (Pulau) Karimata, being about across (east-west). It is part of Kayong Utara Regency of West Kalimantan province in Indonesia. Kar ...

) *''T. a. merah'' Kobayashi & Hayami, 1992 ( Simuk, Batu Island) *''T. a. zeus'' Kobayashi & Hayami, 1992 (

Sipora Sipora ( Indonesian: ''Sipora'' or sometimes spelled ''Sipura'') located off Sumatra in the West Sumatra Province of Indonesia, is the second-smallest and most developed of the four Mentawai Islands at only 620.73 km2. It had a population o ...

Siberut Siberut is the largest and northernmost of the Mentawai Islands, located 150 kilometres west of Sumatra in the Indian Ocean. It covers an area of 3,838.25 km2 including smaller offshore islands, and had a population of 35,091 at the 2010 Cen ...

, Mentawai) *''T. a. naokoae'' (Morita, 1996) (

Langkawi Langkawi, officially known as Langkawi, the Jewel of Kedah (), is a duty-free island and an archipelago of 99 islands (plus five small islands visible only at low tide in the Strait of Malacca) located some 30 km off the coast of northwe ...

) *''T. a. kecilensis'' (Schäffler, 1999) ( P. Laut Kecil)

Related species

''Troides amphrysus'' is a member of the ''Troides amphrysus''

species group In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each oth ...

. The members of this

clade In biology, a clade (), also known as a Monophyly, monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that is composed of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics, a modern approach t ...

are: *''Troides amphrysus'' (Cramer,

779 __NOTOC__ Year 779 ( DCCLXXIX) was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 779 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europ ...

*''

Troides andromache ''Troides andromache'', the Borneo birdwing or Kinabalu Birdwing, is a species of butterfly in the family Papilionidae. It is found only in Borneo. In 2023, it was selected as the official state butterfly of the state of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. ...

'' (Staudinger, 1892) *''

Troides cuneifera ''Troides cuneifera'', the Mountain Birdwing,Ek-Amnuay, P. (2012). Butterflies of Thailand. 2nd Edition (English) is a large butterfly belonging to the swallowtail family, Papilionidae, found in the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java and Borne ...

'' (Oberthür, 1879) *'' Troides miranda'' (Butler, 1869)

Description

Male. The uppersides of the forewings are black or dark brown, with veins bordered by pale yellow. The uppersides of the hindwings are golden yellow, with black veins and black spots at the edges. Female. The basic colour of the females is black or dark brown, with veins bordered by white. The uppersides of the hindwings have a smaller golden-yellow area at the base and several yellow spots at the edges. In both sexes the undersides are similar to the uppersides. The abdomen is yellow, while the head and thorax are black.Seitz, A., 1912-1927. Die Indo-Australien Tagfalter Grossschmetterlinge Erde 9

Life history

HorsfieldMoorCatalogueEastIndiaCompanyLepidoptera2Plate6

The egg is large and round and a pearly colour. Eggs are deposited on the food plant and the incubation period is two weeks. The first

instar An instar (, from the Latin '' īnstar'' 'form, likeness') is a developmental stage of arthropods, such as insects, which occurs between each moult (''ecdysis'') until sexual maturity is reached. Arthropods must shed the exoskeleton in order to ...

larva is black and bears numerous orange tubercles with short, black, branched spines. The intermediate instars 2, 3 and 4 are black. The thoracic segments have eight tubercles and the abdominal segments have six each. These are fleshy and lack spines. The dorsal tubercles of the 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and the 7th abdominal segments, are black. All the other tubercles are bright orange. In the penultimate and final instars the head is black and the thorax and abdomen is dark coffee brown. There is no saddle mark in this species. The tubercles are largely uniform in size, shape and of the ground colour. They are incline posteriorly and the apices are bent forwards to form small hooks. This species is not monophagous. The larvae feed on ''

Aristolochia ''Aristolochia'' () is a large plant genus with over 500 species that is the type genus of the family Aristolochiaceae. Its members are commonly known as birthwort, pipevine or Dutchman's pipe and are widespread and occur in the most diverse clim ...

'' - '' A. acuminata'' and '' A. foveolata'' and on various '' Thottea'' species. The pupa is yellowish green and is marked with greyish veins as in a leaf. It has a broad dorsal saddle mark, this is lemon yellow transversely marked with brown streaks. The abdomen has three pairs of sharp dorsal processes, directed laterally. The pupal stage lasts from 27 to 30 days.=" Straatman, Raymond & Nieuwenhuis, Engbert Jan , 1961 Biology of certain Sumatran Species of Atrophaneura, Trogonoptera, and Troides (Lepidoptera, Papilionidae). ''Tijdschr. Ent.'' 104(3): 31-41

Distribution and habitat

This species can be found in the

Australasian realm The Australasian realm is one of eight biogeographic realms that is coincident with, but not (by some definitions) the same as, the geographical region of Australasia. The realm includes Australia, the island of New Guinea (comprising Papua Ne ...

and in the

Indomalayan realm The Indomalayan realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms. It extends across most of South and Southeast Asia and into the southern parts of East Asia. Also called the Oriental realm by biogeographers, Indomalaya spreads all over the Ind ...

, from

Myanmar Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

. The

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

is primary and secondary

rainforest Rainforests are forests characterized by a closed and continuous tree Canopy (biology), canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforests can be generally classified as tropi ...

Behaviour

In the morning the butterflies fly at 20 to 30 m high in the

canopy Canopy may refer to: Plants * Canopy (biology), aboveground portion of plant community or crop (including forests) * Canopy (grape), aboveground portion of grapes Religion and ceremonies * Baldachin or canopy of state, typically placed over an a ...

. Females rest on the foliage, while males glide in broad circles above them. The males perform an elaborate quivering courtship display several metres above the females, before copulation. Later in the day both sexes descend to feed on flowering trees and bushes including ''

Lantana ''Lantana'' () is a genus of about 150 species of perennial plant, perennial flowering plants in the verbena family, Verbenaceae. They are native to tropics, tropical regions of the Americas and Africa but exist as an introduced species in num ...

''.

References

Butterflycorner.net

Biolib
* Morita, S. 1996: A new subspecies of ''Troides amphrysus'' from Langkawi Is., Malaysia. ''Wallace'' 2: 5. * *Kurt Rumbucher, Béla von Knötgen and Oliver Schäffler, Knötgen 1999 Part 7, Papilionidae IV. Troides II., amphrysus-group in Erich Bauer and Thomas Frankenbach Eds. ''Butterflies of the World''. Keltern: Goecke & Evers .

External links

Consortium for the Barcode of Life The Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) was an international initiative dedicated to supporting the development of DNA barcoding as a global standard for species identification. CBOL's Secretariat Office is hosted by the National Museum of ...

br>''T. amphrysus amphrysus'' at Barcode of Life''T. amphrysus ruficollis'' at Barcode of Life
Images from Naturhistorisches Museum Wien (English/German)
''T. amphrysus ruficollis'' at Butterflies of Indochina
{{Taxonbar, from=Q3539874

Amphrysus The Amphrysus ( - ''Amphrysos'' or - ''Amphryssos'') was a river in ancient Thessaly, flowing from Mount Othrys to the Pagasetic Gulf. According to Strabo, it flowed close to the walls of the town Halos.Strabo, ''Geographica''9.5.9/ref> In Cal ...

Butterflies described in 1779 Butterflies of Malaysia Butterflies of Borneo Butterflies of Indochina Butterflies of Java Fauna of Sumatra Taxa named by Pieter Cramer